RS

MEMBER DIARY

Santayana, Schlieffen, and Moltke on the current state of the Republican party.

Anyone familiar with the writings of George Santayana might well believe that he was a latter-day Nostradamus whose particular area of expertise was the state of the current Republican Party. Consider, if you would, these especially relevant comments:

“Sanity is madness put to good uses.”

“A child educated only at school is an uneducated child.”

“Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.”

“Chaos is a name for any order that produces confusion in our minds.”

“Skepticism, like chastity, should not be relinquished too readily.”

Then spend an hour reading the many diaries on Red State. It’s easy to figure out to which of our current GOP leaders he was referencing in each case……(hint: there are multiple correct answers)

Of course, Santayans’s best know dictum is:

“Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.”

Which brings us to Schlieffen and Moltke…

At the start of the 20th century, the German General Staff developed the overall strategy for Germany to successfully wage a two-front war; France in the west, and Russia in the east.

In 1905, Count von Schlieffen, then the head of the German General Staff, developed his namesake plan; in which the key strategic vision was to“..remember to keep the right flank strong…”

Indeed, those were said to be his dying words, to his successor, Helmuth von Moltke, who of course, ignored them, modified Schlieffen’s plan, and though Germany enjoyed success at the start of WW I, ultimately lost because Schlieffen’s great vision for victory was abandoned.